The stone circle had emptied when the horns sounded. Bill had dragged his mother to its edge and behind a large, cold, rock. They had slowly made their way around the perimeter until they were able to look down the hill to where the sound had come from.
He’d barely believed Fitzmichael had returned given that Bill had last seen him galloping away on a fast horse. He wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t have just kept on riding if the reins had been in his hands. From his new position at the top of the slope, sitting in the shadow of a stone with his mother looking over his shoulder, he could see that their position was hopeless.
Beneath him, the garrison of Crapplecreek was besieged by a great ocean of enemies. Even from here, he could see Fitzmichael, his lance catching the sun as he stabbed it in and out from horseback. So far, the garrison was holding its ground, a thin wall of infantry standing shield to shield as the handful of mounted troops reached over them to thrust down with spears, but it could only be a matter of time.
The enemy seethed around the garrison, some keeping their distance while others probed for a weak spot. They seemed in no hurry, like a cat toying with a mouse.
“Ha! You see how pitiful the resistance is?” cried a voice to his left. Bill pulled himself back into the deepest shadows and listened.
“We invade their world, and this is what they send to oppose us? A handful of men in rotten leather led by fools in ceremonial armour!”
There was a mumble of assent that Bill couldn’t make out, before the voice laughed.
“Oh yes I see him, Grumstone, there is one real soldier amongst them. And if I’m not mistaken, it’s our erstwhile friend Fitzmichael. I have sent orders that he is not to be killed by anyone other than me. I look forward to meeting him again.”
Perhaps it was the self-satisfied triumph in the cruel voice that did it. Maybe it was the threat to his half-brother or indignation at his species being dismissed so casually. Or, possibly, he’d simply reached the limit of his endurance.
The sensible, rational, cautious, Bill Strike, the charcoal burner’s son, took a last metaphorical look over his shoulder and shut the mental door. As it slammed, his inhibitions shattered, and a new, braver, desperate Bill Strike stood there. His caution had fled to a nice, though likely brief, retirement in the company of his sanity and long-term future.
Bill turned to his mother.
“I’m going to help them,” he whispered. “You take cover over there.” Bill pointed to a small stand of trees at the bottom of the slope.
“No! You can’t take on that many, they would turn on you and destroy you!”
Bill smiled sadly. “I’m sorry, mother, I have no hope left but I won’t leave my brother to fight, and die, alone. Besides, every one of those monsters that we kill here is one fewer for his father to face. We’ve sealed up the portal, but this army is already bigger than any I can imagine.”
Hauling himself wearily to his feet, Bill stepped back so he couldn’t be seen by the Faerie King.
“Come, mother,” he said, holding out a hand. They stumbled down the slope, crouching low, and expecting to hear the shout of discovery at any moment, as they headed for the trees.
Chapter 30
It was a testament to the fear he instilled in his army (and their stupidity) that none of his soldiers questioned his odd behaviour. General Odius stumbled out of the tent and walked stiffly towards the supply cart with a young woman seemingly attached to his back.
Brianna jerked the knife through her pocket to nick Odius’ back. She didn’t particularly relish being this close to him - the stink of stale sweat and other smells too hideous to contemplate almost had her gagging, but, despite this, she was enjoying her revenge. The man had looked into her eyes and seen a complete lack of fear and, more worryingly, compassion there. He didn’t doubt she’d kill him in an instant.
The camp was in disarray as men unused to military organisation tried to get their arses in order. At one point a lackey approached the general but scurried away at a glance he took to be laced with malice, but which was, in fact, terror. It took no more than a minute to reach the wagon and, when they got there, Odius simply pointed.
“Get them,” Brianna hissed into his ear. She watched as the general leant forward and lifted the edge of the canvas canopy. In the shadows, she could see an old wooden box, bound with iron and sealed with a robust lock. The box was fixed to the cart floor by a padlock which Odius gestured to before gingerly reaching into a filthy pocket and producing a key. Brianna felt him wince as she jabbed the point of the knife and, after a pause, he very carefully reached into the back of the wagon, pulled the padlock towards himself and turned the key before yanking at the chest.
“Open it,” Brianna said.
Odius used the key to unlock the box and flipped the lid. The box was full of scraps of cloth that the general pulled away quickly to reveal first a mirror, then a clock and finally an old copper bucket. It certainly looked the part, but they’d been fooled by fakes before.
“Now, bring it back to the tent.”
The general closed the lid and lifted the box into his arms before walking past men as disinterested now as they had been before.
As she neared the tent flap, she noticed two familiar figures amongst the milling tramps. They seemed to be looking for something, or someone.
“Dad!”
The taller of the tramps turned, his eyes widening as he recognised his daughter, tied to the back of the man who’d previously threatened to kill her. She nodded urgently towards the tent flap, and Flem Hemlock pulled on the sleeve of the old vagrant next to him. Nomenclature Vokes followed them into the tent.
“So now the whole family’s here is it?” Jessie said, approaching her husband with thunder in her eyes. “So, who’s lookin’ after the farm with you gone? And with bandits roamin’ the countryside.”
Flem Hemlock paused for a moment, clearly arranging his thoughts. He suspected he had only one arrow in his quiver.
“Now look here, Jessie Hemlock. If you think I’d have let our daughter walk into danger, especially after losing you, then you don’t know your own husband.”
He stepped towards her and pulled her into an embrace.
Brianna tensed, but the expected mushroom cloud failed to materialise. In fact, she could have sworn she heard her mother whispering how glad she was to see her husband in a voice Brianna could barely recognise.
And then the moment passed, and they separated, though with slightly moistened eyes.
“Here, dad, you take him and keep him from squealing,” Brianna said, breaking the silence and pushing Odius in the back. “But I don’t want him dead. Yet.”
Brianna took the chest from the General and dropped it onto a filthy rug. She opened it and looked inside. On top was the mirror. Now they’d find out if these were the real artefacts or more fakes. Grabbing a piece of rag from the chest, she wrapped it carefully around the handle and lifted the mirror out.
Velicity’s eyes were full of nervous hope as she reached out and took it before, finally, pulling away the rags and grasping the mirror with her bare hand. Brianna could see, instantly, that the mirror was genuine. Somehow, without physically changing size, Velicity seemed to grow larger and become suffused with light. Suddenly, she was no longer a pretty but bedraggled girl, she was a goddess. Velicity let out a groan of pleasure and then laughed as she filled the inside of the tent with a wind that threatened to blow it away. After a few moments and a howl of protest from Gramma, she quietened down.
Gramma received her copper clock with hunger in her eyes. As she took it, the ground trembled and she smiled.
Brianna went back to the chest and looked down at the bucket. She reached down and hesitated, her hand hovering in mid-air.
“Hand me the bucket,” said the quiet voice of Jessie Hemlock.
Brianna heard the hint of fear in her mother’s voice. Unlike the other two artefacts, the bucket wouldn’t harm Brianna. One day it would be hers. Perhaps today was
that day, all she had to do was reach down and take it and she would have the power. And oh, how she’d make some folk pay.
“Please.”
In all her life, Brianna couldn’t remember her mother ever pleading for anything. How much of the legend of Jessie Hemlock was because of the bucket, she wondered. It had given her power over people and things for decades, and then it had been snatched away from her when she most needed it. Brianna thought about what that must have done to her mother, and what, given time, it might do to her.
Brianna reached down and took the bucket. There was a gasp and a plaintive groan from Jessie Hemlock before she saw the bucket swing towards her, held in a rag.
“Here,” Brianna said, “you have it, I don’t want it.”
The circle of fighting men was collapsing around him, but Chortley Fitzmichael fought on. He sat atop Percy the horse, driving the beast forward to wherever the press was hardest, so he could thrust his lance into the enemy. Unfortunately, the soldiers of the Faerie King were now pushing at the Crapplecreek shield wall from all sides at once and there was no longer any prospect of escape.
Chortley was brutally proud of the men and women of the Crapplecreek garrison who’d fought with unexpected bravery. The same could not be said for those of their officers who’d bolted on horseback as soon as the battle had been engaged. If by some miracle he did survive, he would hunt those cowards down and make their deaths slow.
He raised his lance and bellowed into the din of battle as he thrust the horse into the rear ranks, made up now mainly of the wounded. So many wounded. The end was near.
There was a bang to his left and a flash of orange light. Chortley swung around to confront this new devilry and, to his surprise, saw the bodies of enemy soldiers flying through the air. Another blast and Chortley gazed along the flame-ball’s trajectory to see the small figure of his brother striding through the scattering ranks of the enemy. The boy wore a grim, desperate expression. Perhaps, in these hopeless moments, there was, after all, a family resemblance.
Another whoosh and Bill had cleared a path to Chortley’s men. Fitzmichael roared at the soldiers nearest to him to make a gap and watched as Bill trudged wearily inside the ring. The enemy had disengaged, uncertain in the face of this newcomer but Chortley knew the respite would be brief.
Fitzmichael dropped heavily from the horse and staggered as his feet took the weight of his armour. He took Bill’s outstretched hand.
“Welcome, brother,” he said. “It seems I misjudged you.”
Bill gave a tired smile. “And I you.”
The two looked at each other for a moment. A silence had fallen on the battlefield, the pause before the final storm.
“Where is our mother?” asked Fitzmichael, surprising himself.
Bill gestured towards the hill. “Hiding in a tree beyond the stone circle. She’s safe only as long as we keep the King’s attention focused on us.”
“I don’t suppose you have a plan?”
Bill shook his head. “I didn’t want to leave you fighting on your own. Beyond that, no. You’re the one with military training.”
Chortley laughed so loudly, several soldiers turned to face him before quickly resuming their positions.
“Well, I have enough training to know imminent defeat when I see it!”
“We have to do something,” Bill said, wearily. “Just waiting here to be cut down doesn’t seem the Fitzmichael way.”
Chortley looked up. The boy was right. What would his father say when he learned of Chortley’s heroic stand. He shuddered to think - it wouldn’t be pretty. The Fitzmichaels were vengeful, unrelenting bastards, they weren’t heroes. What would his father say? What would he do?
“How many more of those fireballs can you cast?”
Bill shrugged. “Not many, I can barely feel the heat. Why do you ask?”
Chortley grinned. A smile so evil it would scare the Red Witches of Wichita into repentance.
“We’re going to cut off the snake’s head.”
Fitzmichael heaved himself heavily back into the saddle. He raised his lance in the air and, with the other hand, heaved his helmet from his head and cast it away.
“Men and women of Crapplecreek, you have fought bravely,” he shouted, his voice echoing in the silence. “And behold, in our hour of need, we are joined by the greatest fire-wizard in the world.”
Bill shuffled uncomfortably and received a kick in the chest from Chortley’s stirrup. He held up his staff with a look he hoped was of grim determination and, for good measure, pushed a little heat into its tip to light it.
“You have seen the path cloven through our enemies, now he will clear our way into the enemy’s heart. Form a wedge behind me and onward to glory!” Chortley roared those last few words, but they were swallowed in the silence.
He looked around and screamed: “Or else!”
Chortley reached down and held out his arm for Bill to climb onto Percy’s back. The horse was tired, but he rather felt his life had been heading for this point all along. And at least, this time, the fire on his back was controlled by a sane-ish mind.
“What about the wounded?” Bill asked, pointing at the middle ranks where men and women limped or lay on the trampled grass.
Chortley shrugged. “They must hope that we occupy the enemy for long enough for those who can to escape. They have no less a chance of surviving the next hour than us.”
“Which is to say, practically no chance,” said Bill.
But Chortley wasn’t listening, he was giving orders and rallying his troops. Around them swarmed the enemy, now being organised by their captains. If the garrison soldiers didn’t attack soon, they’d face a tightly packed shield. Bill looked up the slope, and his eyes swept over seemingly thousands of black-liveried creatures, many of whom were fresh. Then he looked around at the exhausted survivors of the Crapplecreek garrison, shuffling into some semblance of order. It was utterly hopeless, and if the enemy attacked right now, they would carve through Fitzmichael’s battered troops in moments, and it would be all over.
But the enemy captains had learned through long training that opportunism and initiative were frowned upon. They took their orders from their generals who, in turn, looked to the King for direction. And, right now, the king was looking to the west.
Chapter 31
The vagrant army had scattered as soon as the trees started moving. Brianna watched, mesmerised, as Gramma danced around them, like an orchestra conductor, laughing for the sheer joy of regaining her powers. Velicity’s wind was buffeting the leaves and hurrying the last of the tramps away but, Brianna noticed, her mother had remained subdued, her powers restrained.
“What is it, mother?”
Jessie looked at her, as if pulled from some internal thought process.
“Nothin’, girl.”
Then she shook her head, as if clearing it.
“It just doesn’t feel right. The gift should have been yours. I shouldn’t have made you give it back. It’s just, I’m nothing without it, you know. Nothing.”
Brianna sighed. Gramma danced in her peripheral vision, scattering the detritus of the vagrant’s camp, Velicity in her wake.
“Look, Mum, I meant what I said. I could’ve had it. I didn’t want it.”
Tears filled Jessie’s eyes. “But why?”
“Because it’s not my time,” she said, then pointed east. “Because over there is an evil, merciless bastard intent on feeding us all to the hell-creatures who serve him. Because my Bill’s over there, and he’s fighting if that explosion we heard is anything to judge by. Because he doesn’t stand a chance on his own. Because he needs Gramma, Velicity and you. Because we need Mother Hemlock back. Now!”
There was a moment’s silence, and Brianna watched as Jessie processed this. And then her eyes cleared.
“That’s enough messin’ around, Gramma Tickle! And you Velicity, keep your wind to yourself for now - you can push it out soon enough. We must move quick, or we’ll b
e late, and I don’t want to miss my appointment with royalty.”
And out of the ground wept a tide that rose into the air and burst outward like an exploding rain cloud.
“Let’s go!” she roared, and Brianna smiled as she followed in the wake of Mother Hemlock.
The King Humunculus gazed unconcernedly to the west. He knew that his servant’s camp lay in that direction, and his final victory would only be complete once he had the power of the elementals in his hands. His wrath grew as the horizon remained unchanged but no matter, there was plenty of time to deal with the ineptitude of Odius once the rabble below had been swept away. He turned to look down the slope and gaped in astonishment. The fools had formed a wedge and were inching their way towards him. He laughed. A thousand of his best soldiers lay between them and him, they stood no chance. Nothing could oppose him now, not even that foolish boy with his fireballs.
And then, above the din, he heard the echo of a thump, as if the earth were collapsing in on itself out there on the western horizon. Where his servant should be. The servant who had captured the witches. His certainty left him for a moment. What if they had somehow regained their powers? He thought for a moment, his eyes scanning back and forth across his legion then to the ragged wedge below and finally to the horizon and again he laughed.
It mattered not. Now that his soldiers were through there was no power on earth to oppose him, the best they could hope for was to delay, all too briefly, their destruction. His gaze swept down the hill again and found the boy wizard.
“Now!” cried Chortley, and Bill searched within himself for the flame, drew it painfully, reluctantly, out and, with massive effort, cast it into the ranks of the enemy. He recoiled from the screams then felt Chortley urging his horse forward as the Crapplecreek garrison surged. And then stopped. The enemy had filled the gap.
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